


Siren

by spinsters_grave



Series: Voltron Angst Week 2k17 [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Garrison-era fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mild Flashbacks, court of law
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 14:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10699050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinsters_grave/pseuds/spinsters_grave
Summary: Alt Title: More Like A MemoryA small business to the side, that's all it was.





	Siren

Lance’s stash was stored in a hidden panel, underneath a hollowed-out floorboard beneath his bed, in a wooden box with a secret bottom, with a stack of family photographs on top. That didn’t stop police sirens doing their ‘whoop-whoop, whoop-whoop’ as Commander Iverson got closer and closer to it. 

 

Iverson peered at the corners of Lance’s bed covers. Whoop-whoop, whoop-whoop.

 

Lance’s stash of Adderall was one of the only things getting him through the semester. The doctors thought he lost his bottles, that he had accidentally let them fall out the window to crash onto desert sand. That he left them behind in the cafeteria for the cleaning ladies to pick up and think them trash.

 

They were wrong. Lance kept his Adderall in a box with a hidden bottom, along with the profit he made. Kids at the Garrison would pay a lot of money to get a little high on the weekends, during the recreational hours. 

 

Iverson looked into Lance’s closet, inspecting his uniforms hung up in their neat little rows. The sirens were softer- whoop-whoop. Whoop-whoop.

 

Lance swallowed and clenched his fists. Someone- he didn’t know who- might have told Iverson about Lance’s little business. He tried to wipe his hands on his pant leg surreptitiously, but Iverson shot him a look with that one devil eye and Lance went still. Inspection pose. Parade rest.

 

Lance’s uncle used to deal drugs. He was a doctor, he could get his hands on all sorts of drugs like morphine and Xanax. Lance was against it at first. He couldn’t stand even being in the same room as his uncle.

 

It got worse when his uncle moved in with them. He was on the run from something- “Please, Esperanza, hide me. They’re coming for me- the police, the- whoever.” Lance could remember the desperation in his uncle’s voice, even five years later. It came back in his dreams sometimes.

 

Iverson went to inspect Lance’s bedside table and the space above his bunk. Cadets were allowed five photographs hung above their beds- that was Lance’s excuse, if anyone ever found his box. He was just cycling through family photographs. 

 

Whoop-whoop, whoop-whoop.

 

Lance was around thirteen years old. His youngest sibling was nearing his toddler years- there always seemed to be a baby in the house. Lance was only four when the twins were born, only eight when Gina was born after them. 

 

That was one of the reasons his mom was so hesitant to take her brother in. She didn’t want drugs around her kids. She didn’t want her brother’s bad habits to rub off on her progeny. Too late, Lance wanted to tell her.

 

He did wipe his hands on his pants when Iverson’s back was turned. 

 

“Esperanza,” his uncle said, squad cars in the background, “please, please, please, is there any other way out of here- the gate-” She shook her head. “Anywhere to hide, an attic, a basement-  _ please, _ Esperanza!” He was yelling, and Lance held his siblings back, and his mother straightened her spine and shook her head and damned her brother.

 

Lance didn’t trust his uncle at the dinner table. His step-father was away for a business trip. He was always away on a business trip. It was up to Lance to be the man for his family, and he resolutely spooned food into his baby sister’s mouth and scooped up the dribble.

 

Tico and Rosa shared their twin telepathy thing, and Iverson reached out a hand to yank at the covers of Lance’s bed. Whoop-whoooop, whoop-whoooop, whoop-whoooop

 

He and his uncle watched TV late one night. Probably a weekend. The smaller kids were all in their own beds. 

 

“So how’d you do it,” Lance asked the television. The character on-screen raised a gun, and Lance blinked. “How’d you get a customer base?”

 

Lance didn’t know how his uncle knew he was talking to him. “Usually, people came to me. I got a couple offers of cash. All they wanted in return was a few pills. Some of them were  _ really _ desperate- ‘Oh, Doctor Torrez, please, the last doctor gave me some morphine and why can’t you do the same?’” 

 

Lance considered. “Do you have some on you?”

 

His uncle gave him an odd look that Lance saw out of the corner of his eye. He kept his gaze fixed on the television screen.

 

“Yeah,” his uncle said.

 

Commander Iverson poked through Lance’s desk, making sure his textbooks were all well-arranged.

 

Someone must have ratted on Lance. Iverson was being way too thorough. Lance scoffed, carefully keeping his face neutral. Iverson had no chance of finding his stash. The panel hiding the hollow floorboard was too well camouflaged. Lance had some trouble finding it himself, when he had to look. That’s what he told himself.

 

Lance didn’t want to think Hunk ratted him out. They were too close for that. And besides, Lance could always incriminate Hunk somehow. He wasn’t sure how yet, but he could.

 

It might have been their new teammate, Gunderson. Lance was suspicious of him. He was a new quantity, unknown, mysterious. Lance couldn’t get a good read on him, but he had a vague suspicion Gunderson was more interested in the secrets of the Garrison than the actual learning aspect. He wasn’t alone- more than half of the Garrison’s students enrolled because they wanted in on the government conspiracies. Most didn’t get to Lance’s level- two years in, pilot class. They all flunked out the first midterm or so. 

 

Iverson peered under Lance’s bed. Weeeee-ooooo, weeeee-ooooo, weeeee-ooooo

 

Police lights glinted off of needles, their insides filled with some clear liquid. Morphine, Lance guessed. 

 

He held on tightly to the box with the needles. His uncle had beseeched him to hide it somewhere, somewhere secret that the police wouldn’t find. Lance stood in his bedroom, squad cars on the lawn outside, and looked at the wooden panels of the space underneath his bed.

 

And the police couldn’t find it. They nearly raided his house, turning Gina’s toy box upside down and spilling stuffed animals like oil on the floor. They didn’t find Lance’s hidden floorboard, and his uncle pleaded “not guilty.”

 

Iverson sniffed once, hard, and inspected Hunk’s space on the other side of the room. The sirens grew quieter.

 

“Not guilty,” Robert Torrez said in the silent courtroom. 

 

Lance shifted on the hard court bench. His mother dragged him here, as well as his siblings, because his stepfather was away on another business trip and she couldn’t find a decent babysitter for them. 

 

The judge banged his gavel on his table. Lance didn’t know if it was the same day or not. “If Esperanza Torrez will come to the witness stand.”

 

Lance’s mom stood up and didn’t look at Lance as she strode to the front of the courtroom.

 

She placed her hand on a Bible. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

 

“I swear.”

 

“You may take your seat.”

 

Lance’s mom sat in the box next to the judge’s stand, next to the jury, and finally,  _ finally  _ found Lance’s eyes in the audience.

 

The prosecutor asked a question, and her gaze snapped away. Lance tuned out their wordless drone, no more significant than squad car sirens or the way the fluorescent lights glinted off of his mother’s hair and his uncle’s handcuffs.

 

Iverson saluted. “At ease, cadets. All clear. Report to training at 0830 tomorrow morning.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Hunk and Lance said together. They’d had plenty of practice.

 

Robert Torrez was sentenced to four years of jail time, with parole. He never came back for his morphine, still in Lance’s wall, and his mom told him that her brother was trying for a better life. He wasn’t a doctor anymore. His license had been taken away.

 

Lance sometimes took out the box, a cheap wooden one with a false bottom. He considered the clear needles more than once, wondering what sensation would fill his veins if he plunged them in. Exhilarating. Terrifying. 

 

He brought the box to the Garrison and filled it with photographs and Adderall. He thought his uncle was in one of them, watching his every move. Lance didn’t know if he would be ashamed or proud. He didn’t know which one would be worse.

 

END

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated!


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